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Table 3 Quotes related to communication between pain and palliative care team and cancer clinical trial team

From: Qualitative inquiry: a method for validating patient perceptions of palliative care while enrolled on a cancer clinical trial

Theme

Selected quotes

Developing Relationships

- And on top of that there was this pastor, I think he’s non-denominational, I mean that fellow would stop by practically every day and ask how I was doing and stuff. (Time 2, 44 year old, female, melanoma)

Good fusion. The cancer team cares about my cancer but the pain team cares about me as a person. (Time 2, 60 year old male, rectal cancer)

Facilitating Open Communication

- Only problem out of the whole thing is with us not being local. What maybe someone up here is afforded to come up here and get acupuncture or physical therapy or something, that’s not really being afforded to us down there. And so we’re at kind of at a loss as to how to proceed. (Time 2, 48 year old, male, rectal cancer)

- Yeah it’s working. It’s working very well. I mean, every time we come up here for cancer treatment the pain team is here to meet us, and trying to help us out. (Time 2, 48 year old, male, rectal cancer)

- Well they’re doing a pretty good job. I mean when the Pain Team says they’re going to recommend such and such to the doctor it’s pretty much carried out very quickly. Actually I’ve never had what they recommend not carried out or at least tried. (Time 3, 35 year old, female, carcinoid)

Quality of Communication

- Yes. Because apparently there’s communication going on with coordinating of appointments and the staff comes across to me as fully competent and capable, and responsive able to respond to any issue that may arise. (Time 3, 65 year old, male, colon cancer)

- Yes I think so. I think if you got more than one persons opinion you have several things to go by not just one person’s opinion. (Time 3, 70 year old, female, melanoma)

Uncertainty about Communication

-Dr. F mentioning, I think I remember the pain team coming in after I had talked to Dr. F about the pain so I think there must have been some communication but I’m not aware of how that works. (Time 2, 53 year old, female, melanoma)

 

-Well, I’m not sure how you communicate after, I’m not sure what happens to this information after I give it to you, I don’t think you would be doing it if it wasn’t going to be communicated. (Time 3, 49 year old, female, mucinous adenocarcinoma)